The hippie shake-off

Continuing our series on China's richest celebrities, not-so-wild chart-toppers Yu Quan tell Joey Liu how clean living brought fame

MAINLAND SOFT ROCKERS Yu Quan hate hippies. And by that they also mean, confusingly, singers such as Michael Jackson and George Michael.

'Most of our lyrics are encouraging, without any hippiedom or rebelliousness,' say Yu, half of the squeaky-clean duo, whose name is a contraction of their own: Chen Yufan and Hu Haiquan.

Sitting in their office off Beijing's upmarket Jianguomen Avenue, Yu lights a cigarette - not exactly a squeaky-clean habit, but then the band are nothing if not contradictory. To Yu and Quan (as they call themselves), both 29 and from military families, being a non-hippie seems to mostly entail steering clear of drugs and something they call 'exaggeration'. Drama, probably. 'Even when we deal with schmaltzy themes, we sing them with our true feelings, with no exaggerations,' says Yu. Then he scribbles his autograph for a star-struck cleaning lady who has come into the office, and tells her not to interrupt again. She leaves beaming.

Yu Quan are the mainland's biggest-selling band, and were voted best music group (mainland China) by MTV in 2000. They were MTV favourite male artists (mainland China) in 2002 and Channel [V] favourite music band (mainland China) last year. Their four albums - Most Beautiful, Deep Breath, Totally Cool and Cannot Without You - have each sold more than a million copies, a figure that would be much higher if pirated copy sales were included. To try to combat piracy, their albums sell for just 15 yuan. The pirates sell for as little as seven yuan. They say the tactic works, with many fans willing to pay a bit more for the real thing.

The pair don't really suit their clean-cut image. Yu has long hair (very hippie) and a hard rock-style tattoo of a feather on one skinny arm. Quan has short hair dyed blond and is wearing a red Adidas hat. Both sport tinted sunglasses and skintight shirts.